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I went down an interesting rabbit hole recently, I was trying to figure how big the iron core of the sun was and the answers were surprisingly all over the plac
by somat 2y ago
I went down an interesting rabbit hole recently, I was trying to figure how big the iron core of the sun was and the answers were surprisingly all over the place.
There is the no iron core/fractional percentage gang which bases their theory on the observed sun, but this conflicts with the common cloud theory of solar system origin, which is basically there was enough iron in the proto cloud to provide iron cores for most of the inner planets and you are telling that you think that most of this iron did not end up in the middle of the sun.
then at the far end of the spectrum is the crackpot "the solar system is a second generation(minimum) system, some star must have exploded to form the metals we see, the core of the sun is probably the stellar remnant of the first generation system and is mostly iron"
But really I wonder, all our observations of the sun are of the upper atmosphere, and more importantly the light emitted by the upper atmosphere, if earth was observed the same way you would conclude it was mainly made of nitrogen.
- chasil 2y agoOur sun does not have an iron core. If it did, it would immediately collapse into a black hole. When the sun burns all of the hydrogen in the core, it will then burn helium. The burning will end at carbon. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-burning_process https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-burning_process Silicon burns to iron, which becomes degenerate matter that cannot resist gravitational collapse.
- somat 2y agoThere was a bunch of iron in the proto dust cloud that formed this solar system(i pick on iron because it is a nice infliction point past which you get no energy from fusion, but really include all of the middle stable elements here), as the dust cloud collapsed it formed an iron core in all the planets, and many asteroids. but no core in the sun, explain how that is possible. really, I expect at minimum an earth sized iron core in the sun, it is probably much more.
- eigenket 2y agoThe sun's core is overwhelmingly composed of helium and hydrogen, with about 1% oxygen and about %1 everything else. At least according to the standard model, I don't know how much "wiggle room" there is in our understanding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_core At the edge of the core is about 70% hydrogen 28% helium with the helium fraction increasing up to 66% right at the center. One thing I think you're missing is how overwhelmingly the cloud that formed the solar system was hydrogen and helium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the... The gas cloud that formed the solar system is expected to have been 98% hydrogen and helium, 2% everything else. We don't see these ratios on rocky planets like earth because the gravity here isn't strong enough to hold the hydrogen and helium, so mostly it escaped and we have a wildly non-representative sample of elements left.
- adrian_b 2y agoThere is enough iron in the Sun for an iron core. Nevertheless, the standard model of the Sun supposes that, because of the very high temperature, the interior of the Sun remains mixed well enough so that the heavy elements like iron cannot segregate to form a distinct core, but only, as you have mentioned for helium, the concentration of heavy elements is somewhat higher in the center than at the surface. However the standard model of the Sun is not very certain, because the behavior of matter at extremely high pressures and temperatures is not known well enough.
- gus_massa 2y agoIANAA If there was an iron core, it would vaporize in the center of the sun because it's extremely hot there. A few years ago, someone measured the energy of the neutrinos produced by the fusion in the center of the Sun [1]. [1] perhaps there are some details in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_neutrino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_neutrino
- chasil 2y agoAn iron core is actually the precursor for either a black hole or a neutron star. There is an exothermic fusion chain of elements that are burned in stars, the last stage of which is silicon, that ends with iron. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon-burning_process https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon-burning_process At iron, no further exothermic fusion is possible, so the core is no longer able to resist the pressure of collapse. The iron atomic nuclei themselves break down, the protons combine with electrons to form neutrons where they are able, and if the total mass is below the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff, then neutron degeneracy pressure is able to stop the collapse, otherwise a black hole forms. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolman%E2%80%93Oppenheimer%E2%80%93Volkoff_limit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolman%E2%80%93Oppenheimer%E... A star needs to be 8 solar masses for this to happen. Our sun ends at carbon.
- pfdietz 2y ago> Our sun does not have an iron core. If it did, it would immediately collapse into a black hole. Even if the sun were 100% iron, at its current mass it would not collapse into a black hole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar_limit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar_limit
- Arnavion 2y agochasil is talking about a star that was able to form an iron core naturally through fusion, not a thought experiment of a ball of iron with the same mass as the current Sun.
- pfdietz 2y agoThis hypothetical is getting into "if my granny had wheels she'd be a wagon" territory. I interpreted the original comment as if the Sun, with its current mass, had an iron core. A star with the mass of the Sun cannot have produced iron, so it would have had to have formed with an iron core. This is certainly ruled out by other data, of course.
- DiggyJohnson 2y agoLinking to Wikipedia is ridiculous here, considering we are discussing the current scientific debate and consensus. You just worded your contribution more forcibly.
- phkahler 2y agoI recently realized it takes light over 4 seconds to cross the diameter of the sun. It seems absurd to conclude what's inside it based on light emitted at the surface. Other methods of deduction maybe, but not that.
- cryptonector 2y agoThe Sun is opaque to light in its interior. The light we see -and its absorption lines- is emitted in the photosphere, far from the core.